Wil Castle () is a castle from the 13th and 16th century in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Schlosswil Schlosswil is a former municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2018 the former municipality of Schlosswil merged into the municipality of Grosshöchstetten. History Schlossw ...

in the

Canton of Bern The canton of Bern, or Berne (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the c ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. The castle is a popular destination for locals and is a Heritage Site of National Significance. It was the administrative seat of the Konolfingen District.

History

During the Middle Ages, a fortress () was built near the village and it became the seat of the ''

Herrschaft The German term ''Herrschaft'' (plural: ''Herrschaften'') covers a broad semantic field and only the context will tell whether it means, "rule", "power", "dominion", "authority", "territory" or "lordship". In its most abstract sense, it refers ...

'' of Schlosswil. The lords of the fort, the

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , ) and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in ...

en von Wiler, were first mentioned in 1146. The von Wiler family died out around 1300, and the village and associated territory passed through several noble families, including the Freiherren von Signau and eventually the Senn von Münsingen family. The territory was split in half and passed through several

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

ese patrician families until Burkhard von Erlach reunited the two halves in 1514. In 1546 the medieval castle was destroyed in a fire. Shortly thereafter it was rebuilt as a larger castle under the direction of the master builder Niklaus von Wattenwyl-May. The current appearance comes from a 1780 renovation that gave the castle a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

exterior. Following the 1798 French invasion, under the

Helvetic Republic The Helvetic Republic (; ; ) was a sister republic of France that existed between 1798 and 1803, during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was created following the French invasion and the consequent dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy, ma ...

the nobility lost much of their power and property and by 1812 the castle was acquired by the Canton of Bern. In 1818 the castle tower became the only

granary A granary, also known as a grain house and historically as a granarium in Latin, is a post-harvest storage building primarily for grains or seeds. Granaries are typically built above the ground to prevent spoilage and protect the stored grains o ...

for the district of

Konolfingen Konolfingen is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Bern-Mittelland (administrative district), Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. History Konolf ...

. A famine in 1816-17 was partly alleviated by the grain at the castle. In 1847 the tower was converted into a prison, a role that it filled until 1881. Even after the prison closed, the castle continued to be used by the district administration and courts. In 2010 the District of Konolfingen was dissolved and the need for district offices vanished. In 2011 it was acquired by Matthias Steinmann, who founded the Steinmann Foundation to operate the castle.

Castle site

The original fortress tower was built in first half of the 12th century for the von Wiler family. The walls of the square tower are tall and to the peak of the roof is . At the ground floor, the building is and the massive walls are up to thick.Schlosswil municipal website - History
accessed 10 May 2013

Notes

References

* Text and pictures partly come from the public
Devestitionskonzept from 26 October 2007
of the ''Amts für Grundstücke und Gebäude des Kantons Bern'', pg. 22 f.

External links

in ''swisscastles.ch''

from ''burgen.ch'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Wil Castle Buildings and structures completed in the 13th century Buildings and structures completed in the 16th century Castles in the Canton of Bern